Danai Gurira: A Black Panther Rock Star

When Marvel's hotly anticipated superhero epic Black Pantherarrives in theaters next week, you're going to have a hard time picking your favorite character. Starring Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o, and living legend Angela Bassett, the film is wall-to-wall icons. As fearsome bodyguard Okoye, however, Danai Gurira is ready, willing, and able to take your fave crown. She will bowl you over.

Indeed, it's possible she already has. The busy artist, known to millions as the fierce Michonne on The Walking Deadand to theater audiences as an accomplished playwright—her most recent work, Eclipsed, starred Nyong'o and ran on Broadway—is poised for a seismic worldwide breakthrough with her Black Panther role. Portraying the leader of the Dora Milaje, a team of women warriors who protect the throne of fictional African nation Wakanda, Gurira plays a dramatic role in the film's central conflict about the future of the country, while also tearing up the screen in eye-popping action sequences and fight scenes. You probably already saw her handily disarm a team of henchmen with nothing but a wig and a spear in an instantly viral clip. But Okoye—like Gurira—is so much more than flash and grit.

The actress talked with ELLE.com about the mantle of responsibility, her deep connection to Wakanda, and the power of imagery.

This film is iconic; I'm sure you knew that going in. How soon into this process did you realize it was going to be so huge?

When I accept a project, I have to do the heart check. Is it something I passionately want to be a part of? And a story I really feel, I want to tell, and needs to be told? I felt all those things and then the idea of the Marvel treatment on top of that! There were so many things in this film that were unprecedented, [I thought] I would love to see, let alone be in it. Being in it was the cherry on top.

I remember walking into a few of the sets, like the tribal council room or T'Challa's office, places that were so beautiful and Afro-centric, very specific to African aesthetics, and I was like, "Wow." We've just never seen this before. So that got me excited. When I get excited, I just assume other people will get excited, too.

We spent a week in the tribal council room and I was in almost every scene in that room. So I basically never left it. I just felt an energy from that. Not only did I feel like my character, but it made me understand her responsibilities more. I was like, "She's trying to protect all of this."

The tribal council room in Wakanda

Marvel

Okoye is phenomenal; she harnesses so much power. How did you formulate the character?

She's really nothing like the character in the comic book at all. I actually loved that, I loved the reinvention of her. She's in love but her first love really, honestly, is Wakanda. I loved that about her. That both her and Nakia (Nyong'o) put that passion for the thing they believe in before even their passion for a man. I thought that was really, really beautiful in her.

What I thought was really interesting was the idea of when someone has the responsibility of the longevity and the thriving of a nation on their shoulders, which is very much what her job is. The idea of protecting the leadership of this nation, the sovereignty of this nation, even if you don't like what's happening. That struggle and complexity, I found really compelling. I thought a lot about people who work in federal government—who have a change of office happen and go from one leadership to another but still retain the integrity of the institution. The idea of going from one presidency to another. But you have to stay there and serve the institution, serve the nation in the way that has been done for generations, regardless of how you feel. It was a very interesting parallel when we were shooting right around the early part of 2017.

Okoye and Nakia have a really wonderful, compelling exchange where you're arguing that point. It was fascinating to me that the people who are doing most of the debating and protecting of Wakanda are women; there are so many powerful women in decisive positions.

We were very collaborative with [director] Ryan [Coogler] about that, and he had a great vision for them. It was very important for me that [Okoye] was a traditionalist. She believes in how this country has worked forever and she wants to retain that and keep that intact. She has a pride and a patriotism about her nation. It goes beyond patriotism; it's something even deeper. Because it's so connected to being on a continent that has been ravaged by foreigners, by the assault of colonization and all that came with it. Seeing that through the ages and protecting this one place from that assault, seeing that was done by her forefathers and her foremothers in a very specific way.

Gurira on set with director Ryan Coogler

MATT KENNEDY/MARVEL

That got me very passionately connected, because I was born here and raised on the continent. I've seen so much of this astounding potential but the world sees it through a very distorted lens most of the time.

My passion that I really felt in Okoye came from that connection. Just looking at how beautifully they designed the movie—they used a lot of ancient African structures and then they Marveled them out into these beautiful, massive structures in the movie. It really made me passionate about the idea that this is a nation that had that experience we all would love to know about: when an African nation is allowed to self-evolve, which didn't get to happen.

Okoye (Gurira) and the Dora Milaje

Marvel

I would give my eye teeth to protecting and preserving that nation. The idea that little girls can look at those who are closest to their leader and see they are women. And see these women walk the streets and be in charge. I thought how Okoye, as a little girl, must have looked up to that and said, "I want to be that one day. I want to be one of them." I loved the idea of little girls running up to the Dora Milaje and just looking at them and waving at them as they walked by. I feel that they had to be rock stars in Wakanda. It's something so important to preserve; that little girl needs to be able to grow up and become an Okoye, or a Shuri (Letitia Wright), or a Nakia; whichever her skills allow. All those things made me very passionate in how I approached the character and the work as a whole.

I wonder how you envision Black Panther going out into the world and affecting young, black, and African children?

I was in Zimbabwe early last month and the excitement around this idea of a Marvel movie being told through the African prism was overwhelming. The excitement was amazing. It floored me, the impact this movie is set to have, if even where I'm from, there is that much excitement around it. How often do we get to see a portrayal coming from the continent? And it's celebrating the continent, and celebrating African aesthetics, and celebrating African cultures and language, as well. Celebrating all those things and people of African descent.

They're in the center of the screen, their faces are what you're seeing. Their perspectives, their struggles, their stories, their characters, their destinies. That's what we're focused on, and their heroism. I tell you it's amazing, the impact of imagery and representation. It's no small thing. Think about how these portrayals could truly affect the minds of these young children and their sense of esteem.

My philosophy is: I will...try. Fashion is the one area where I allow myself to not only entrust some ideas to my stylist [Thomas Carter Phillips], but also lean into what might be a bit adventurous for me. Fashion is this evolving art form. Being willing to take a journey with it and find the new thing is a new experience. I love taking on the different looks that he gives, that he brings, and we share and we collaborate about.

It's an adventure, it's stepping into areas you've never been before and absorbing the new ways that it's changing around you, then gravitating towards what is thrilling and interesting to you. I want to feel the art in it.

I had no idea. I loved it. I thought it was subversive in a really important way. I thought it sort of threw a wig in the face of western beauty concepts. I loved that.

I've lived a lot of my adult life with short cropped hair and all of my adult life with natural hair. So, it was a very exciting thing to play with and I loved it from the second I read it. It was always in the script, it never changed. I thought it was fantastic, and I thought it was important. I don't care about how anyone wears their hair—it's just about a freedom of knowing all ways are fine and can be embraced by women, and nothing of that defines your femininity. I thought it was a great combination of subversive femininity and ferocity at the same time.

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